


a sword in my hand

by CuddlyCookie1360



Series: rayllum prompts [2]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Could you tell, Friendship, Gen, How Do I Tag, I Don't Even Know, No Plot/Plotless, Prompt Fic, Swordfighting, callum is tired, does this count as rayllum for rayllum month if it's just friendship, like nothing happens, so am I, whatever im too tired to care, wheres the plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 04:27:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19456336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CuddlyCookie1360/pseuds/CuddlyCookie1360
Summary: Callum waved his hands. "Rayla, I don't wanna learn to fight, I want to sleep."





	a sword in my hand

**Author's Note:**

> *in case you didn't read my last story i'll say it again: im following my own list of prompts because there's a lot of drama and i don't know who's side im on so im staying out of it
> 
> *also this is short cuz im on vacation and can't be bothered 
> 
> *im tiredddd
> 
> *prompt - rayla teaching callum how to fight

It was a typical day.

Well, about as typical as a day could get when they were sneaking through Xadia on a mission to return the Dragon Prince with a dorky, highly trained assassin and an ignorant prince with a knack for magic. But that's putting it too literally.

They had been walking through a forest for a while, Rayla scouting ahead and trying to keep them, you know, alive, Callum doodling in his sketchbook and not paying attention, therefore Rayla had to keep him alive, and Zym trotting along in his own universe. Everything was going smoothly until they reached a clearing in the forest.

Now, Rayla had been wanting to teach Callum to fight for a while, but there was never a good time. They had been running from archdragons, jumping from town to town, elf Callum made an appearance and that was a whole 'nother can of worms she didn't want to open. They hadn't had a lot of time to sit down, and now that they did, Rayla was going to have him stand right back up and learn to fight.

"Okay!" She announced, clapping her hands together and putting a fake prep in her step. "Get up."

Callum raised an eyebrow at her from his position on the grass, sketchbook in his lap, charcoal in his hand. He slowly closed it and locked the clasp, putting it off to the side while keeping his eyes trained on her. "Umm... why?"

"Because," she explained, grabbing his arm and dragging him to his feet. "I'm finally going to teach you how to fight."

Callum blinked at her. Once. Twice. "What."

"Trust me, I'm a great teacher!" she said, waving him off and twirling away on her heel.

"That's not- I don't... I mean, I'm sure you are but- wha-" Callum stuttered, blinking dazedly and stunned into silence. He opened his mouth a couple times to say something else but no words came.

She turned back towards him. "You'll be fine. I'll be here to make sure you don't slice open yourself, me, or worse, Zym."

"We just," he said, twisting and pointing with his thumb behind him, "hiked through this forest for like, four hours."

"Oh, it was a hike?" Rayla asked innocently, titling her head. It had seemed like a normal stroll to her. "Well, whatever. No time like the present, right? I want to teach you to fight!"

Callum waved his hands. "Rayla, I don't wanna learn to fight, I want to sleep," he groaned, blinking at her again with something that might have been a glare if he had the energy for it.

"Too bad," she said. She unclipped her blades from her belt and flipped them open to reveal her swords, but not without a little showing off and twirling them through her fingers. She held them out to Callum with the blade pointed safely away from both of them. "Take it."

Callum blinked again- what was up with him blinking?- and took the sword from her hand. He held it weakly in his grip, trying not to move his wrist in case the sword swung into one of their faces.

"I was taught to first get acquainted with my blades," Rayla explained. She held her other blade in her hand and fiddled with it. Callum took a couple steps back so he couldn't accidentally whack her and began waving it around. She deadpanned. "Can you, ya know, try?"

"I'm tired," Callum complained, but he gripped the sword a bit tighter and tried swinging it more gracefully.

Rayla watched him, looking for mistakes, but there weren't many for him to make since they weren't doing anything yet. "Okay, now that you've got that, since the only blades we have around are mine, we'll probably be using them a lot. So, you should learn how to flip them into hooks." She adjusted her hand to slide over to where the switch was engraved. With a flick of her wrist, she switched the blade from sword to hook. "Now, this can be a bit difficult if you're trying to keep hold on the blade because you've got your hand in an awkward position--"

"Like this?" Callum asked, flipping his wrist up and down, letting the blade click to hook form. He glanced down at it. "It's just the switch, right?" He twisted his wrist and his thumb found the switch again. Flicking his wrist, he changed it back to a sword.

Now it was Rayla's turn to blink at him.

For whatever reason, she suddenly couldn't process information. Him being able to do that at all was astounding, but she thought back to her learning when she was younger and how complicated it had been. "Wha... that took me like, a week to learn to do, how did you..."

"It's literally just a switch," Callum said, switching it back and forth. "I don't see what's so hard."

She gaped at him, dumbfounded. Learning that had been torture for her and incredibly frustrating, and he did it so casually! After she had been stunned for a couple seconds, she shook her head and spun her blade in her hand. "It's much harder to use in practice."

Callum continued messing with the blade, focusing completely on the task, and she bent her knees and lunged forward while the prince remained distracted. It was so funny how facile it would be to knock her blade out his hand and sweep his legs out from under him, she almost felt it was dishonorable, but she would not let him show her up. Embarrassing him would be too easy.

Then in a split second, she saw him peek at her out of the corner of his eye, and he brought the blade up with a click, and she couldn't rush forward anymore. Confusion filled her for a second and then the realization hit. He just... he just caught her blade with the hook! Her blade! She was supposed to be a highly trained assassin and he had next to no experience and he... stopped her?

She backed up and freed her blade. "How did... what?"

"I saw you coming."

"But... wha--"

Callum smiled purely and handed the blade back to her. "I don't know how to close it."

Rayla blinked. Once. Twice.

Callum pressed the sword into her hand and she let it fall limply by her side, too shocked to think about it. He wandered back over to his sketchbook and sat down, picked it back up, and started doodling again.

It was her turn to be stunned into silence.

**Author's Note:**

> *ugh what is the ending
> 
> *wowie this isn't really rayllum but we don't talk about that
> 
> *thanks diana for being my walking thesaurus 
> 
> *also idk when my style changed to me being sarcastic but here we are????
> 
> *callum has good reflexes and learns quick don't @ me, let me make him be a badass
> 
> *plus i mean technically he does know how to fight and when he's tired and rayla's lowkey making fun of him he's gonna show her up
> 
> *im realizing how i either make callum a badass and overpowered or torture him in my stories there is no in between


End file.
